THE CHAIRMAN.-The Council are of opinion that it is desirable to confine the discussion to the subject-matter of Iron Ships versus Wooden Ships, and not to go on to the question of iron-plating, as Captain Halsted has not entered into that yet. It is desirable that in the discussion one on each side shall speak alternately.

CAPTAIN SULLIVAN, R.N.-With respect to the "Harpy " and "Lizard," mentioned by Captain Halsted, the reason I venture to make some remarks upon them is because I myself gave those two vessels the directions for passing that very place where these accidents happened. In going down past it just before, in a small sailing vessel, we succeeded in passing close under the battery, without a shot striking us. We went close under the muzzles of the guns, and I advised these two iron vessels to do the same. To quote the "Harpy" as an iron vessel fitted for war, it would be just as reasonable to quote my little tendervessel that was not struck by a shot; because the "Harpy " went in so close under the cliff that every shot from the battery passed over her, though after she passed, and they got a gun to bear in a raking direction, one shot struck the Commander's arm. The only shot quoted by Captain Halsted to prove her fitness for war, is one that must have been fired in an oblique direction, because it went through two of the paddle-floats, and therefore it could not have been a direct shot. Her case does not apply in the least. The "Nemesis " case does not apply in the least to the question, as only one shot struck her. But the "Lizard" is a case so decidedly applicable, that up to the time of reading this statement of Captain Halsted I had always supposed it, as I believe all present had supposed it, to be conclusive against thin iron vessels as fitted for the purposes of war. She had only to pass five eighteen-pounders. There was a tide of three or four knots against her; she had nothing in tow, She could not have been long under the fire of these guns, because they were so confined in their training by banks of clay it was with very great difficulty, with the vessel passing even at the short distance she did, that they could get more than a couple of guns to bear whilst she went past; yet the damage done to her was so great, that before she had passed she had three-feet water in the hold. I did not see her, but those who wrote to me described her as having proved the utter unfitness of iron vessels to be trusted within reach of shot. The men and officers were sent below. A shot struck one of the ribs in the gun-room. I believe the shot broke up against it at all events the splinters the iron shot made were so bad, that one shot killed one officer and two men. Some round shot passed clean through and struck the opposite side; but I understood that her principal danger from sinking was caused by the fire being from a height downwards, driving out the plates under water. I have no doubt from all that occurred, that had she been a few minutes even under fire, she must have sunk before she could pass. All those who saw her gave such a very decided opinion, that it at once settled the question that these vessels were utterly unfit for war. To show how much damage she received, compared with wooden vessels, I may mention that a few days before, I met a wooden vessel, the " Alecto" of 700 tons, with three heavy schooners in tow full of troops. Just after I passed this place, she took these schooners past. She was so long under fire, in consequence of not being able to tow the three vessels round the point, that she got a great many shots in her hull. At last she stuck opposite one gun-the last gun; and that gun kept throwing down shot after shot-eighteenpounder shot-at the pivot-gun that was on her forecastle, till it was knocked over by a shot from the pivot-gun. Yet, with all these shots, that vessel had not one man killed or wounded.* It was astonishing from the way in which the steamers passed, from the crew being scattered, and the comparative size of the deck, that there was no serious damage. The only case in which there was any serious damage in proportion to the fire was in the case of this iron vessel. One wooden vessel, the " Dolphin," had fortysix shots in her hull, principally 32 and 42 pounders. She had one-third of her crew cut down entirely by the plumping of round shot. She had her wounded laid on the deck just above the water-line, so that the shot passed over where the wounded lay. Some of the operating men were killed, but the wounded escaped, from being under the line of fire. Can any one doubt but that the wounded would have been all destroyed, had there been splinters of iron? I have not the slightest doubt of it. To bring the case of the "Lizard" forward as a proof of what an iron vessel can stand, is really contrary to the opinion of every person who was present and saw it. Then again with respect to these very experiments, I never heard of them till Captain Halsted read them; but the experiments seem to me to justify the report which was come to. We read of the shot splitting the iron into fragments, and driving them across the deck like a charge of grape.

* We presume owing to the absence of iron splinters,-Ep.

When

the experiments on wood were made the shot struck stancheons and caused many splinters; but those stancheons would have been in the rear of the men working at the sides. We did not hear of any such destructive splinters except from the opposite side and mid-ship part of the ship; yet these iron shot would, breaking up in passing through the side of an iron vessel, begin to spread the moment they passed through, and mow down the men just the same as if a charge of grape were driven through the hull. Therefore I think there cannot be anything in these experiments which can at all justify the opinion that the officers who made them did not give an honest report of the result of their experiments. With reference to the strength of these ships, which I think is included in this portion of the paper, I am leaving out the question of plating ships, because that is now a settled question-there is now no difference of opinion. The only question is whether those plates can be better placed on strong wooden ships or on iron ships. Up to 1850 certainly all the experiments had been made only on thin iron ships; the plating of them with shot-proof plates had not been thought of. Even the corvette which was proposed to be built in 1855, you will find, was after the floating batteries had been built-a year after the French Emperor had begun them. I think in November, 1855, those floating batteries had been tried against the forts at Kinburn. Therefore it at once explains why, when some one proposed the building of iron ships, it was merely adopting what had then been an experiment made principally with another form of ship. Then again when these ships were built in 1858, instead of party having anything to do with it, it seems to me they were built because it was found that France had got the start of us in building iron ships-and that anybody would have done the same whoever he was. But suppose the iron plates to be a costly thing, the only question then remains whether it is safe and right to put these expensive structures on an iron bottom. Letting bygones be bygones as to all these experiments, I think this is a most serious question, because we are going to a very great expense in putting very expensive structures on a bottom that I for one believe to be decidedly unsafe and unfit for the purpose. I have a strong opinion even with regard to iron vessels. I allow that, for sailing vessels, where they are not carrying passengers, and not very likely to be wrecked, where they gain in stowage, and are somewhat cheaper, it may be very desirable; but, after the results we have had of the wrecks of iron ships, after the numerous cases I have had before me during the last four years of inquiries into the loss of iron ships, my conviction is, that it is not safe to entrust the lives of men in any numbers in ordinary iron ships if there is a question of taking ground. It may be said, this is an old obsolete prejudice in favour of wood-in my case it certainly is not. The conviction has been forced upon me more and more as I have gone into the inquiry into the causes of the wrecks of iron vessels. They are all very well at sea, but directly they strike rocks, they go like brown paper. Take the instance of the "Birkenhead" for one. Not long since there was the case of the " Royal Charter:" she broke her back across a little ridge of rocks, where the worst wooden steamer would have perhaps hogged and bent, yet have held together long enough to save her crew. Not long since the "India was lost on the coast of Newfoundland. She was one of those fine new steamers built for the Canadian mails. She had a number of passengers. It was not a gale of wind, nor a heavy sea. She went on a ledge of rocks so level that the report states there were two and a half fathoms of water in the fore-chains, amidships, and abaft; therefore she was nearly on a level bed. Can anyone suppose that a good wooden ship would not have stood a little grinding before she broke up? And any man of war would have ground there for days and days before she came to any serious mischief. This ship working on this ledge in a very few minutes broke in two in the centre. The two parts fell in opposite directions; and, before the boats could be got down, seventeen of the passengers and crew were drowned in these few minutes. Now there is not a wooden merchant steamer in the world that would have done that, much less a solid man-of-war steamer. Then again in the case of the "Birkenhead " she ripped up by trying to back astern. Not long before there had been an old paddle-wheel steamer, one of our old sloop steamers, on shore on a rock near the same position in a much heavier sea. As she lifted and bumped she was backed off by her engines, and, not having an iron bottom, they were able to keep her floating along the coast till they found a safe place to beach her and save the lives of the crew. Had she been in the "Birkenhead's " place she would certainly not only have saved them, but probably have come of with little serious damage. I could instance the case of the "Pique." We know she was aground twenty-four hours in a heavy sea on the rocks of Belle Isle, and yet she came home across the Atlantic with three-sixths of her timbers ground away. Suppose the strongest iron ship ever built, if she had a double skin with three feet between them, even the three-feet soles of the "Great Eastern," will any man believe that those blows which ground away three-sixths of a wooden bottom would not

have gone clean through both skins and everything of the iron ships? On one occasion in the Baltic one of our old forty-gun ships that had been built for a steamer, and had all the heavy engines and boilers of a three-hundred-horse-power steamer in her, which made her strike more heavily, stood in for the land. She found herself in a wrong position. She stood off, not knowing exactly where she was. There were dangerous rocks outside. Those rocks had a fathom less water than she drew and she ran right on the centre of them. The captain was a good masterly hand, and he knew the only chance was to take advantage of the lift of the heavy gale, for she was under a closereefed topsail, and force her over this patch of rock, a mile in extent. At every lift he pressed on sail, which carried her forward, and at last got her off. The blows on the bottom were so heavy that her top deck bulged up at every blow. That vessel went over those rocks, stayed out, and did her work to the end of the season in the Baltic. Can anybody suppose that the "Warrior" under those circumstances, with her tremendous weight of 7,000 tons, going down on her bottom, would have stood that for ten minutes? Her ribs would have been broken; and, if she did not drown all hands, the 300,0007. she cost would have been lost. Now it is a serious question, the employment of these ships in time of war. They are all very well to run across the Atlantic, not entering ports any time after dark; but when you come to a time of war, these ships must keep on an enemy's coast night and day. A man knows if he has a wooden ship under him, and she hits a rock that she will get no great damage but if he has one of these iron ships under him, however anxious he may be to keep in and risk a few rocks, I do not think that there is any man in the service who would dare do it, if he has at all the conviction that I have as to the unsafety of iron ships; because he would know that, not only would the ship be a total loss, but in all probability he would lose the lives of the whole crew. When these iron vessels do fill they settle down. When sunk they may remain, owing to their weight, more steadily on the bottom than a wooden ship; but they settle down so rapidly that the sea breaks over them in such a way that no one could live on their decks, and the chance of getting them off would be hopeless. There is one case, often quoted by the advocates of iron-cased ships, that of the Tyne. She went into comparatively smooth water on the coast, to the east of Portland. She struck, not very heavily at first, and she answered her helm and kept getting off till she had come round from about E. N. E. She was steering off to S. E., and her head was nearly E. There are many of my friends here who have been in ships in that position, and they know that as long as a ship is moving, however hard the strikes, she will come off, and there will be very little damage done. In this case there was no shallow or water outside, but the moment she struck she drove in her bottom plates; though she was coming round and answering her helm, she was settling down from the rapid filling of one compartment; and where she was in a position that a wooden ship would have come off, she would not move. That ship lay there. They had to build off the compartment where the damage took place, and then with immense lifting power to lift her, with the additional weight of the water in this compartment. When the "Sphinx went on shore on the Isle of Wight, she beat over rocks with much less water than she drew. As far as I recollect, she beat over at first a reef of rocks. She then went into deep water, and was brought up by an inner reef. That vessel lay there exposed to the whole swell of the Channel for months. The only difficulty was to take her out over this reef. She came off after all these months of grinding, having been kept clear by her own pumps. Again, the "Great Britain" went on shore on a sandy beach, with one lump of rock there. She had no rock outside, and as she settled down on the sandy beach the rock went through her bottom she settled down over it, there being a great weight of iron with the water in her. With breakwaters outside her she managed to lay there for some months. But they had to lift up and repair her bottom, and get this rock out of the way before they could think of getting her off. The "Gorgon "beat over a reef of rocks nearly half a mile from where she grounded. She beat on this reef of rocks with much less water than she drew, in a heavy sea, and she tore off her bottom, but she made no water. The consequence was she went over the reef in safety and drove up on the beach, and lay there as long as the "Great Eastern " did. But she was got off, and was so uninjured that she went and did her work for a twelvemonth on her station, and then came home. But put an iron ship in position just as the "Gorgon " was; in beating over that reef, if she did not settle on it, is quite certain the rocks would have driven some of the compartments in; and in passing in she would have sunk before she got in, and there settled. I feel that as a certainty. Any one who thinks of the difference in the cases, and thinks of the way in which that rock went through the bottom of the "Great Britain" would know that if she had beat

on a rock of less water than she herself drew, as the "Gorgon" did, she would never have reached the beach. There is scarcely an instance of a wooden man-of-war being lost from getting on shore; the cases are so few in which they are not got off again, that there are only a few exceptions. But when iron ships once strike on the rocks, the exception is when they are recovered. Not only is my feeling strong about placing these expensive structures on iron bottoms, but if the responsibility rested with me I should feel it a positive duty not to send out even troops, emigrants, or any men whose lives were at stake in one of these iron-built merchant ships. I allow that there are some advantages in combining the wood and iron in these iron-bottomed ships. But we must recollect another thing, viz., that we have to get over the question of keeping the bottoms clean. Even at the Society of Arts, one of the iron-ship builders stated it was necessary to find some plan of sheathing them with wood outside and coppering them. I had it from the same officer whom I have quoted, that the "Himalaya," if her bottom is not cleaned every year, would have her speed considerably reduced.

Mr. SAMUDA.Captain Sullivan has thought proper to refer to a subject on which I had no intention of making any observations this evening, but to which I now think it necessary to refer for a few minutes before I come to Captain Halsted's paper. I scarcely imagined that at the present time it would be necessary to rise in defence of the question, whether it was moderately safe, or whether any sane person would take upon himself the responsibility of allowing valuable lives to be trusted in iron ships performing ordinary voyages? That such a question should be raised by a gentleman who holds the position in the Board of Trade which Captain Sullivan does, is one of the most extraordinary things it has been my good fortune or misfortune to listen to. I will only just put it in one practical point of view, and then I will dismiss that part of the subject altogether. I will first of all mention this circumstance, that while Lloyds, who ought to be pretty good judges of what is the ordinary value of ships' risks, charge something like from six to eight guineas a-year for insuring the ordinary wooden craft, which, according to Captain Sullivan, perform all these voyages with such admirable superiority, the Peninsula Company perform the office of their own insurers; and I can speak from information received from the managing directors, when I tell you that from twenty years' experience their insurance account has not yielded them a charge of two per cent. upon the cost of their shipping-their fleet being entirely an iron fleet. I will only add further, that when it is attempted to disparage a mercantile marine of universal application throughout the world, by quoting such cases as the "Birkenhead " and the "Royal Charter," I think Captain Sullivan ought to have explained how very exceptional those cases are from those which might reasonably be looked for under an ordinary state of good and efficient and well-built vessels. The "Birkenhead" was a vessel built very many years ago. The destruction-the absolute destruction of the "Birkenhead " was due, to what? To an iron vessel-I will admit improperly constructed -not being able to possess herself of a means of security, which a wooden ship has not yet been able to possess herself of at all, of bulk-head divisions, to separate entirely one part of the ship from the other. These bulk-heads when improperly placed in ships, or placed without the amount of experience which may reasonably supposed to have been obtained since the building of that ship, are, I say, a source of weakness to a ship on the occasion of her taking the ground, though they are a source of great security to her on the occasion of one portion of the ship being perforated. I should not say they are a source of weakbut I should say the way in which they were placed in the "Birkenhead" was a result of weakness. I believe the same observation applies to the" Charter," I am not at all defending the "Charter:" I do not want to say a single word about the "Charter." But when that is quoted as an instance of the inferiority of iron ships, I will just inform Captain Sullivan of what has taken place in three or four cases with iron ships that have come under my own knowledge. In the first place, there was a vessel I built myself, which, after she had been at sea for two or three years, got on shore in the entrance to Neath Roads. I was telegraphed for to send down men to see what pos sibly could be done to save this vessel, her destruction being considered imminent. She was loaded with 700 tons of iron ore, a full cargo, and she had taken the ground in such a position as to leave fifty feet of her after end unprotected, that is to say wholly unsupported. The weather was extremely bad, so bad that there was no possibility of going to the vessel and lightening her; and the tides were taking off so that she could not be floated. The only answer I was able to telegraph back was, "I can do you no good; let her take her chance." That vessel lay upon that shore for seven days, with two or three days of most severe gale, It was so severe that no craft could go to her to lighten her. At the

ness,

end of the third or fourth day she was lightened sufficiently to float, when the returning tides of seven days took place. I had sent down in the meantime a foreman and two or three men, with instructions to get as many more as was necessary. The whole cost of the repairs of that ship was 127. The first thing after she floated her own engines were put to work, and she steamed forty miles before she could get on to a gridiron in order that it might be seen what was the matter with her. A few plates were strained; they were caulked, and the vessel went on her service and worked for two years after that. Now, is it not too much for any gentleman to quote iron ships as being unsafe for people to be in, when so many know of what they may be made, and when we all know that the best services performed under the sanction of Government and by many of the first commercial countries in the world, are done-not partially-but wholly with iron ships? I am really surprised to hear any one make assertions to the contrary. (Hear, hear). The destruction of the "Paramatta" which took place the other day, and which must have come under Captain Sullivan's notice, was about as good evidence as any one could wish of the enormous strength that could be given to a good iron ship. That ship was placed in a position on the rock from which it was impossible to release her, and she remained there for months. Not more than a fortnight ago the observation was made to me by one of the managing directors, "I believe a large portion of her remains there still." She remained there undestroyed for months and months during the heaviest weather. It was perfectly impossible from the position in which she took the rocks to get her off again. That was the description given of her to me, and I believe it was perfectly true.

Then we have got the fact and the knowledge, in spite of the experience of the last speaker, that the Peninsular Company's ship, the "Northern," went on a rock in precisely that position which was described by Captain Sullivan as certain to be fatal to an iron ship; and yet she is as good a ship as they have in their fleet at the present day. Therefore, I think it is wasting time, after the examples, not only that I have put, but the world-wide and notorious examples that everybody has within his own observation, to attempt to decry iron ships as being useless, when they are found to be as useful and practical, if properly made, and as strong as any structures that ever floated on the

waters.

plate

Now, to refer to the matter which is more immediately the subject of this evening's debate, which all of us and the country generally take an enormous degree of interest in, I think it necessary to say that to deal with the mere question of an iron ship by speaking simply of a ship constructed of iron plates in the way in which we construct merchant ships, would be to throw ourselves a quarter of a century back; in fact, would not be raising any issue which would be useful for the practical purpose of the question of advancing our navy. To make this question useful, you must deal with the question of what profit, what advantage, we should have by constructing the vessels protected in the way, or somewhat in the way, in which it is intended to protect them at the present moment-whether these vessels be of wood, or whether they be of iron. I do not think the observations Captain Halsted has made with reference to the shivering shot and shell to pieces would induce any person (if the mere question required to be resolved by this answer had been, "Are these the only ships-the only mode of construction-which you propose to adopt ?") to come to the conclusion that vessels with sides of plating, or something approaching to it, were the right things suitable for vessels of war. We have got a great many stages beyond that. I think we have got completely into the right direction by taking iron hulls, and protecting those hulls so as to make them shot-proof. Now, there are certain points which appear to me to be most essential-in fact, fundamental elements in this question. Granted that a vessel cased in iron plates is a right thing to meet the artillery of the present day, what are the conditions-and that I think is the most important thing of all to start with-what are the conditions which are indispensable to enable that vessel successfully to be a ship of war? The first condition which I think absolutely indispensable is, that it should have at least equal speed with, and that it would be far better if it had greater speed than, any ship it is likely to contend with. That I believe to be essential because, shutting out altogether the question of speed, if you protect these vessels as well as the weight you can afford to carry upon them will allow you to protect them, you run a great risk, with the means at your disposal to make a successful result, of destroying that result, and thereby throw yourselves back some twenty or thirty years. Speed being the first point essential in ail iron ships of war to make them successful, the next is to protect them entirely from one end to the other. If we must have the fastest ship, and must have a ship wholly protected, the question then arises, how are we to do that? I will not go the length of saying it is impossible to do that on a wooden hull; but I do go the VOL. V.

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